Walt Disney
was one of the most prominent figures in American history and pop culture. The founder of the Walt Disney Company, Disney was the creator of hundreds of beloved characters and films. This innovative man revolutionized the animation, as well as theme park, industries, and was a prolific animator, cartoonist, filmmaker, producer, and businessman. Revered as a cultural icon throughout the world, Disney's impact on the entertainment industry and legacy survives today.
Opening of Disneyland 1955
On a business trip to Chicago in the late-1940s, Disney drew sketches of his ideas for an amusement park where he envisioned his employees spending time with their children. The idea for a children's theme park came to Disney after he visited a visit to Children's Fairyland in Oakland, California, and may have been inspired by the park Republic of the Children located in Argentina. This plan was originally intended to be built on a plot located across the street to the south of the studio. but these ideas developed into a concept for a larger enterprise that would become Disneyland. Disney spent five years developing Disneyland and created a new subsidiary company, WED Enterprises, to carry out planning and production of the park. A small group of Disney studio employees joined the Disneyland development project as engineers and planners, and were dubbed Imagineers.
As Disney said, "...I just want it to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded by a train." According to Disney, entertaining his daughters and their friends on the Carolwood Pacific Railroad inspired him to include a railroad in Disneyland.
Planning Disneyland
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Disneyland Grand Opening
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On Sunday, July 17, 1955, a live TV preview was hosted for Disneyland. Disney gave the following dedication day speech:
“To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past ... and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America ... with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.[”
Disney walked around the park, introducing one land after another. At Fantasyland, he said, "Fantasyland is dedicated to the young and the young in heart, to those who believe when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true."
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Disneyland, one of the world's first theme parks, finally opened on July 17, 1955, and was immediately successful. Visitors from around the world came to visit Disneyland, which contained attractions based on a number of successful Disney characters and films. After 1955, the Disneyland TV show was renamed Walt Disney Presents, and when the show upgraded to color in 1961, it became Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, moved to NBC, eventually evolving into its current form as The Wonderful World of Disney. Disney also created a company-owned record production and distribution entity called Disneyland Records.
Disneyland... and Beyond!
While Walt Disney Productions began work on Disneyland, it also expanded its other entertainment operations. The studio began making all-live action features, beginning with Treasure Island in 1950, and also produced its first TV special, One Hour in Wonderland, in 1950. Disney also began hosting a weekly series on ABC calld Disneyland, where he showed clips of past Disney productions, gave tours of his studio, and familiarized the public with Disneyland as it was being constructed in Anaheim. The show also featured a Davy Crockett miniseries, starting a "Davy Crockett craze" among American youth. In 1955, the studio's first daily television show, Mickey Mouse Club, debuted on ABC. It was a groundbreaking comedy/variety show made specially for kids. Disney himself was personally invested in the show and even voiced Mickey Mouse during its original 1955–59 run. The Mickey Mouse Club continued into the 1990s.
As the studio expanded and diversified into other media, Disney devoted less attention to the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, whom he dubbed the Nine Old Men. Although he was spending less time supervising the production of the animated films, he was always present at story meetings. During Disney's lifetime, the animation department created the successful Lady and the Tramp (the first animated film in CinemaScope) in 1955, Sleeping Beauty (the first animated film in Super Technirama 70mm) in 1959, and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (the first animated feature to use Xerox cells).
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Early 1960s Successes
By the early 1960s, the Disney empire had become a major success, and Walt Disney Productions had established itself as the world's leading producer of family entertainment. After decades of pursuit, Disney acquired the rights to P. L. Travers' books, and Mary Poppins, released in 1964, was the most successful Disney film of the 1960s and featured a song score written by Disney favorites, the Sherman Brothers. The same year, Disney debuted a number of exhibits at the 1964 New York World's Fair, including Audio-Animatronic figures, all of which were later integrated into attractions at Disneyland. He also planned a new theme park project which was to be established on the East Coast.
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Plans for Disney World and EPCOT
In late 1965, Disney announced plans to develop another theme park to be called Disney World a few miles southwest of Orlando. Disney World was to include "the Magic Kingdom", a larger, more elaborate version of Disneyland. It would also feature a number of golf courses and resort hotels. The heart of Disney World, however, was to be the Experimental Prototype City (or Community) of Tomorrow, known as EPCOT for short.
Mineral King Ski Resort
During the early to mid-1960s, Walt Disney developed plans for a ski resort in Mineral King, a glacial valley in California's Sierra Nevada mountain range. He brought in experts such as the renowned Olympic ski coach and ski-area designer Willy Schaeffler, who helped plan a visitor village, ski runs and ski lifts among the several bowls surrounding the valley. Plans finally moved into action in the mid-1960s, but Walt died before the actual work started. Disney's death and opposition from conservationists stopped the building of the resort.
